In a piece called The Ten Best and Worst Movie Posters of the Year, Vulture lays out some analysis of the year’s movie posters—why yes, that BRIDESMAIDS poster was pretty cool. They also single out two comics movie campaigns for some brickbats, including Worst: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, describing it thusly:

The nephew of somebody important just started working in 20th Century Fox’s marketing department! He’s turning 19 this Thursday and he’s going to get a really big cake!

That FIRST CLASS campaign really was…poor. The floating heads within the body motif? Is that supposed to be lke, a mutant power? Given the groovy 60s time period, looking dull was quite a feat. Note however: The mini-skirt had NOT been invented when the movie took place! Lies! All lies!
Also rapped on the knuckles, the COWBOYS & ALIENS campaign:

Cowboys & Aliens kept switching up its ad strategy in an attempt to find something that worked, and late in the game, the studio ditched a moody shot-from-behind one-sheet of Daniel Craig to settle for this, a random production still. Unfortunately, the marketing campaign needed a stronger take that would tie together all of the movie’s wildly disparate elements — including title and tone — though if the talented filmmaker and cast behind Cowboys never quite figured out those issues, who could expect its ad execs to?

Although really a fairly harmless movie, COWBOYS & ALIENS has firmly cemented itself as one of the flops of 2011 — even though it nearly broke even. To be fair…that is a lousy poster, though.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

Supposedly, their awards show is better than the Oscars, partly because it is not taped, and partly because the audience is made up of marketing people, who are eager to have fun (and make fun of others).